Friday, 31 May 2013

As
this week the world watched Bashar
al-Assad dig his country into an ever deeper hole, I found myself celebrating a
more appealing ruler of Syria on BBC Radio 4’s academic chat-show
In Our Time. But we ran out of time, so please excuse me if I
add the two points I really wanted to make.

Zenobia,
who led the attempt of Syria to get the eastern part of the Roman Empire to
break away between 267 and 272 AD, was a model of intercultural tolerance.She was herself probably of mixed Arab and
Macedonian ancestry, but her city worshipped hybrid gods from west and east and
at her court she welcomedthinkers from
every intellectual tradition.

More appealing than Al-Assad?

She
protected Paul of Samosata, a working-class boy who had grown up to be an independent-minded Christian bishop (he heretically thought Jesus was mortal). She learned rhetoric from Cassius Longinus of Emesa
(Homs), a brilliant Platonist, lover of liberty, and possibly the Jewish author of the dissertation On the Sublime still fundamental to literary
criticism. She certainly helped some other Jews get asylum.

In
European art and literature, Zenobia has predictably been reduced to an erotic
figure over whose affections Persian and Roman male rulers struggled. The fact
that one ancient source said she was led in chains through the streets of Rome
by the Emperor Aurelian got the neoclassical and Victorian imagination over-heated.
But to many Arabs, especially women, she is a heroine—a pre-Islamic role model
who rode camels, read philosophy and ran an empire as well as being a good
mother.There is a charming Lebanese musical about Zenobia on youtube.

Mustafa Tlass

I
am a bit disconcerted to find that my admiration for Zenobia is even shared by
the Syrian former Defence Minister and deputy Prime Minister, General Mustafa
Tlass, a tycoon who wrote a biography about her as national heroine in 2000.
That was before al-Assad booted him out and he went to live in Paris. Who says
ancient history doesn’t meet the modern world?

Speaking
of which, the Researcher on the project Classics and Class has persuaded me to take Twitter seriously. I
have always believed I was temperamentally unsuited to it. I like using longer
prose periods than fit into a tweeting box and often get tired and emotional. I
have actually had a twitter account under the name of an obscure avatar for
some time, but couldn’t even work it. So just to prove I’m no Luddite, even though I am now tempted to call myself @ZenobiaAugusta, I’m about to
start tweeting more sedately as @edithmayhallas soon
as I can locate this thing my family tell me is called an app.

Saturday, 25 May 2013

A
sustained meditation on iniquitous power relations, dressed up as cute
dialogues between cuddly animals—are Aesop’s Fables
really suitable for impressionable children? I gave a paper over Skype to a
conference on children’s literature in Warsaw, and laughed when I reminded
myself that Aesop should come with an ‘X’ certificate.

In The Wolf and the Lamb,
the darling baby mammal is mercilessly devoured by the wolf. Moral: nice guys finish last. In The
Cockerel and the Jewel, the humble cock is taught to accept that a grain of
corn ought to be the limit of his aspirations. In The Hare and the Tortoise, the tortoise is motivated to plod on
forever because his superior might—just might—nod off and let him win something. The Gnat
and the Bull shows, however, that small powerless entities aren’t even
noticed by big ones.

"I'm bigger than you are"

A
disturbing number of fables stress that different groups are naturally irreconcilable, e.g. The Jackdaw and the Doves. Surely we don’t want to teach our children
this principle in a multicultural society? Others suggest that masses are
incapable of ruling themselves--The Mice
in Council, and the Frogs who wanted
a King. Let’s introduce a dictatorship!

No Democracy for Little People

It
has become fashionable amongst Classical scholars to argue that Aesop’s Fables were originally stories told by
ancient slaves, and that they therefore have a subversive and rebellious
undertow. I am inclined to think that while any slave will have seen the fact
of domination reflected in the message of the Fables, they will also have chimed perfectly in tune with the
mindset of the master class.

Socrates
put Aesop’s Fables into verse in
prison. Luther said every peasant should
read them. Malcolm X read them in prison
and recommended them to his followers. The radical socialist Hugo Gellert
framed his critique of the brutalities of American capitalism in his collection
of fables Aesop Said So (1936). But
there have also been sinister ultra-right readings of Aesop, such as Trau keinem Fuchs auf grüner Heid’ und
Keinem Jud bei seinem Eid! (Trust Neither
A Fox On the Green Heath Nor the Promise
of a Jew) by Elvira Bauer (also 1936), which sold at least 70,000 copies.

Next
time yougive a first-time parent a
charmingly illustrated copy of the Fables,
ask yourself if the precious newborn is really ready for such cynical ethics.
More importantly, all three children with whom I have read many books said that
Aesop was completely boring. Perhaps you have to have experienced the
unfairness of life full-on before you are ready for his wisdom.

Saturday, 18 May 2013

The glyph 'woman' is after 'man' so why does 'sow' come before 'boar' etc?

How
gratifying it has been this week to see the role played in decipherment of
Linear B by a woman—Alice Kober—finally being acknowledged in the New
York Times!The ‘code’ in which the elusive Mycenaeans wrote their
lists was cracked because several
scholarly minds, British and American, male and female, had cumulatively applied
their brains to the problem over the course of several decades.Kober was on the verge of full decipherment
when she died young, in 1950.

de Romilly, great Thucydidean

Many
other outstanding female classical scholars remain unsung. Two months ago, with
my colleague Rosie Wyles and student Lottie Parkyn, I convened an international
conference devoted to unearthing them. We chose the date to mark the centenary
of the birth of Jacqueline de Romilly, outstanding French Hellenist and
first ever woman to be nominated to the Collège de France.

But
we also unearthed Lusia Sigea, the 16th-century Spanish humanist who actually made a living out of teaching Latin
and Greek to other women.The foremother
of Dutch women classical scholars,Anna
Maria van Schurman, was a leading light of the Dutch Golden Age; her wit and
intelligence shine through her Latin treatise Whether a Christian Woman
Should Be Educated, available
online in English translation.

Sigea, professional lecturer

The 18th century saw Anne Dacier showing the French how to do Classics with erudition
and style, and in England Elizabeth Carter enthralling Dr Johnson with her
command of ancient Greek and translation of Epictetus.By the late 19th, the
study of classics was central to the campaign to secure African American women education
in the post-emancipation USA.

van Schurman, prodigy of Utrecht

Excavating these ancestral figures is fun and
inspiring.I want to build a library room in which their
portraits hang in the alcoves alongside the standard-issue tired clergymen and
bewhiskered dons. Actually, we will be building a virtual gallery, online or in
print or both, so my wish will soon enough come true.

Carter as (Smiling) Minerva

There has been a two-month delay in writing about
this conference. The reason is that celebrating anything felt entirely
inappropriate given the absolutely tragic death in America during it of Professor Kate Bosher, a superb young scholar and the kindest person with whom I
have ever worked.

I had just reviewed a fine volume by her for the Times
Literary Supplement on Feb. 1st and can scarcely believe she is dead. She was only
thirty-eight, leaves a husband, a young child, and a painful hole in the lives
of many friends and colleagues. The output from Women Classical Scholars conference
will of course be dedicated to her memory.

Saturday, 11 May 2013

I
have just taught an MA class at the University of Leiden, and fell in
love with the institution. The chairs of both Latin and Greek are held by
wonderful women, a situation I never expected to see at
any university in my lifetime. The students have all learned their excellent
Greek in state schools. They come from diverse social and ethnic backgrounds.

Leiden
was awarded its university in 1575 by William I of Orange, as a reward for
holding out when besieged by the Spanish.The foundation story claims that the citizens were offered a choice of
reward--advantageous tax breaks or a university-- and chose the latter. The
inhabitants of Leiden are still actually proud that their forefathers chose
intellectual life over lucre.

Gulliver in Brogdingnag

The
Leiden students, of both sexes, are so tall that I feel like Gulliver in the
land of the outsize Brobdingnagians, whose advanced culture was based on the
practice of reason. They are polite, but I am careful not to offend them. Remember
the tackles with which the enormous Dutch national football team assaulted all
opponents in the 2010 World Cup? These culminated in the final, with Nigel de
Jong’s chest-high kicking of the Spanish midfielder Xabi Alonso. The (British) referee was so scared of de Jong
that he only gave him a yellow card.

Why I am careful not to offend Dutch people

Perhaps
the Dutch are so tall because of the proteinous dairy products derived from
their glossy Friesian cattle. Perhaps it
was an evolutionary adaptation which helped them fix their windmills without
having to use ladders. Since the Renaissance, they have themselves traced their
height to the rigorous physical training of their forefathers, the glorious tribe of
the Batavi, whom Tacitus described as most courageous.

The
Batavi were exceptional horsemen and swimmers and conducted rebellions against
Rome when they felt they were treated disrespectfully. In my favourite Latin inscription of all time,
a Batavian
auxiliary serving under Hadrian in AD 117 boasts, ‘I swam across the wide
waters of the deep Danube with all my arms; and while a weapon from a bow hung
in the air fell, I transfixed it with an arrow and broke it, I whom no Roman
nor barbarian, no soldier with a javelin nor Parthian was ever able to outdo…’

Fectio, the Dutch Batavian Re-Enactment Society

The Batavians’ descendants, at least
in their football stadiums, still systematically applaud when their stars
execute violence against their opponents. I am finding this hard to reconcile with the rational
organisation of society and high levels of civilisation and culture which the
country has achieved. Please can someone enlighten me?